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Joey Johnston, The Tampa Tribune, published 18 December 2005
Chris Simms became intimately familiar with the Gillette Stadium turf Saturday afternoon. He was sacked a season-high seven times and knocked to the ground at least a dozen times more in Saturday's 28-0 loss to the New England Patriots. But he kept getting up.
"It's not fun [to get hit a lot]," said Simms, who was 21 of 34 for 155 yards. "But we can survive. And I'll definitely survive."
There was some concern when he banged his left thumb on a Patriot helmet. It was jammed and it throbbed through the rest of the game. But Simms said it will be fine. Otherwise, it was the kind of game you might expect from a quarterback making his 10th NFL start and facing the two-time defending Super Bowl champions.
The Patriots blitzed. They disguised coverages. They did everything possible to mess with Simms' head. Mostly, they played rough.
The most critical play occurred after the Patriots had gone ahead 14-0 late in the second quarter. Simms had just hit Ike Hilliard for a 22-yard gain to the Tampa Bay 44-yard line. Working a hurry-up offense, Simms was hit from behind by blitzing Patriots linebacker Mike Vrabel, who was unaccounted for in the blocking scheme.
"We had a miscommunication," Simms said. "I don't know exactly what happened, but it gets ugly when you make mistakes against a team like this."
The ball popped loose and was recovered by linebacker Willie McGinest, leading to another New England touchdown just before the half.
"That was huge," Simms said. "If it's 14-0, it's OK, no big deal. But you don't want to be in a position like that, going down 21-0 at the half against a defense like that. We knew we had an uphill climb."
For Simms, it was an invitation for the Patriots to batter him on nearly every pass play.
"He had a long day today," Bucs wide receiver Michael Clayton said. "He's tough. He's not looking forward to anything but going out these last two games and getting wins."
Simms acknowledged it will be nice to play at Raymond James Stadium for the first time since Nov. 27, after a three-game road trip that could've wrecked Tampa Bay's season. The Bucs were 2-1, and Simms has now gone 117 consecutive pass attempts without throwing an interception.
But under constant pressure, he rarely got a shot at taking chances down the field.
"You've got to take some shots, and we had a few [plays] called," Coach Jon Gruden said. "The couple we did have called never got launched. That happens to me sometimes. You ever see the duds? The smoke bombs you buy at the store that don't go off? We had a couple of duds today."
Simms was the player holding the fuse.
"I'm OK," he said. "You've got to hang in there. You've got to realize sometimes, 'OK, there might've been a guy open down the field,' but I was about to get hit, so I had to throw it to the flat and get it out of my hands. I got hit, but I [usually] got rid of the ball. A lot of those sacks were a product of the way this game was played."
And for the Patriots, the name of the game was to harass Simms.
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